Hardly Wait-ing

Last week was graduation week in the city of Irvine, meaning thousands of families and friends converged upon the OC in all its splendor. But regardless of the location, graduation means two things:

1. Hotel reservations are impossible (and also somewhat prohibitively expensive).
2. Restaurant reservations are in short supply.

Knowing this, I made both my dinner reservations about three weeks prior to graduation week.

Saturday brought my brother and I to Roy's Newport Beach location, a hip and modern place where Hawaiian fusion supreme reigns supreme. We arrived at about 7:20 for our 7:30 reservation, but tonight was unlike any other night I had been.

There was a party of 13 in the private dining room, and slews of large parties of families with their graduating children. So much so that a crowded bottleneck assembled at the host stand and into the bar. After waiting about 20 minutes in the bar and looking at the menu, we still had not been called. We went back to the host stand to check on the progress, and they said we were second in the queue.

For those of you new to formal dining, this practice is wholly unacceptable, especially if the restaurant doesn't acknowledge wrongdoing and offer some kind of remedy (and had this been done to a reviewer, it's suicide_. But it's hard to communicate to the staff that they've entered this realm where they need to give you something in exchange for your patience. It has been my experience that if you can show a mild degree of impatience and frustration on your face, they get the message.

Thankfully, the staff at Roy's did. They reassured we would be seated and once so, we would be given some complimentary appetizers. Surely enough, an order of pot stickers and an order of Schezwan fried calamari were immediately rushed to our table after we were seated.

I had the steamed Opakapaka, knowing it is a special kind of fish in island cuisine, but was somewhat ignorant of the fact that give our location, the fish was probably not going to be fresh. As a result, its distinctive taste was not present in the dish. However, most of the other elements of the meal were solid, from the appetizers and my brother's Coconut-crusted halibut.

(And as questionable as it sounds, we skipped dessert, deferring to see what the establishment in my next entry had to offer)

In the end, no matter what the circumstances, it is key to remember that as a paying customer, one has certain rights in a fine dining establishment. The staff trains year after year to meet the requests of the customers in the effort to establish the restaurant as an elite dining location. Tonight, the staff at Roy's did a good job of fixing a bad situation, but could also benefit by making sure that this does not happen in the future, so as not to lose on offering complimentary dishes to angry customers.

Coming up next, the tail-end of the graduation week recap, featuring Michael Mina's Stonehill Tavern in Dana Point.